Hacker News Reader

Comment by tijuco2 | Hacker News Reader

I had a roommate from Saudi Arabia who said that their king have realized that a while ago and because they have basically infinite money, he started to develop small cities that have touristic potential, and people are being taught English too. In his words, they want to change this oil stereotype about their country, and that in ten years their country will be transformed.

View on HN

I question how realistic it is for Saudi Arabia to turn into anything like the "tech hub" or "international finance center" or whatever of the area while simultaneously being an Islamist, conservative theocracy that is in many ways still judicially medieval.

Even if they pull it off, many people will think twice about coming there. Corruption, bigotry and a close-minded view of the world needs to go first.

Look at a country like Singapore: does anyone believe that they would be where they are today if they were an authoritarian regime that executed homosexuals and ordered the murder and dismemberment of dissidents abroad?

I've lived in Singapore, and while it is generally a free society, its only pseudo democratic, and the government has placed various restrictions on political activities. Its no where near the level of Saudi Arabia, but there is a huge difference between traveling to Singapore for work/vacation and living there.

I am aware Singapore is not a perfect democratic example but this derails the debate and is beside the point, which is that if Singapore had mirrored the oppressive nature of Saudi Arabia, it would never have succeeded.

I can agree with that. I didn't mean to derail the debate.

What does "being an Islamist theocracy" have anything to do against becoming a tech hub or finance center? They're not mutually exclusive in any way.

> executed homosexuals

Claims like this make it hard to take these comments seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

Exactly my point. The executions listed there were not done just for homosexuality, but were associated with other crimes including child molestation and murder.

One of those English speaking cities is Neom [0]. I think they want to build it into a tech/tourist planned city.

The Mediterranean and South East Asia is littered with these futuristic planned cities. I was anchored off the coast of Malta near this KSA financed "Smart City" [1]

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-what-we-know-saudi-arab... [1] http://smartcitymalta.com.mt

Unfortunately, tourism is the one major industry that is a non-starter right now.

These plans are more long-term than the next handful of months, so I don't think that's a consideration.

A city should last for centuries, at least, but it's hard to say if international tourism (as we know it) will recover within the next handful of months.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com